Just checking, is there a action slot before a player Kingdom phase.

For example, i want to play demoralise to prevent my opponent to collect 2 less resources in his turn.

From the rules, it seem that the 1st action slot is only after the player kingdom phase.

Rule Book page 10

1. Kingdom Phase
First, the active player resets his resources by returning all of his unused resources to the centre of the playing area and then taking 1 resource for each
power in his kingdom. The kingdom starts with a base power of three.

The active player also has the opportunity to restore (see Corruption, p 17) any single corrupted card under his control at the beginning of his kingdom phase, before any player actions can be taken.

Then, both players have the opportunity to take actions (including using tactic cards). Once both players have chosen not to take an action, play proceeds to the next phase.

This is more or less repeated on page 14 in the quick reference chart. So no, you may not take any actions until after all resources from your opponent are returned to the pool, he takes his new resources, has an opportunity to restore one of his corrupted units, and then as active player when the actions come around, he still gets choice of first action.

Damon

I raised this in another thread but given the title of this one I thought it would be good to raise it here as well. The Skavenblight booster has the card ABANDONED MINE. Its test says:

Kingdom . Action : At the beginning of your turn, you may return one of your developments to its owner's hand.

this would seem to suggest that there is an ability to play actions (at least on this card) prior to the Kingdom phase beginning. What do you think?

I think Abandoned Mine's ability should be a Forced one. Must be a typo.

Why would it be a typo? It even says you MAY! Forced, I doubt, would ever have the word "May" in it.

Because it says: At the beginning of your turn , which is the moment when it can be activated... and no actions can be taken at the beginning of the turn. If it were Forced it would be activated at the beginning of the turn (it activates automatically when it says so) and it would offer the possibility to return a development to the hand.

Note that Forced abilities are not optional, that's why it says "may", because you can choose whether you want to return a development to the hand or not (but you cannot choose whether the ability is activated or not).

I guess the reason is a misprint...Action in there is completely useless.

not at aLL!. Golden rule: Card trumps rulebook.

so if the card says: "Action: at the beginning of your turn do X", that means you get to do an action at the beginning of the turn, ignoring the rulebook rule that says you dont get an action then.

Dont forget the golden rule! So no misprint!

mateooo said:

There is nothing in the card that says you get an action at the beginning of the turn. Rather it says if you use this action at the beginning of your turn X will happen. Rip Dere 'eads off is the closest card I can think off (with the sacrifice at end of turn effect). As written you would use the mine during any action window and nothing would happen until the beginning of your next turn when you would do X. Neither the Rip sac effect or the returning development can be responded to since the window is long gone. The resolution to the mine isn't the returning a development to your hand but a state consisting of "at the beginning of your turn do X." Also as written "the beginning of your turn" wouldn't limit when you can use the action but when the development returns to your hand.

That said I would bet on a misprint myself making this a constant effect like Temple of Shallya makes this card a million times easier. You can work it as is but having effects hang around for several turns (activate, opponents turn, your turn) far more complicated then helpful.

Ractur is right, the card does not say when it must be used, simply when the effect must take place. Until we have a flow chart that shows an action window at the beginning of the Kingdom phase this card cannot be played at that time. It must be played during a legal action window.

I used the Rules Questions function on the main page to submit this and several others. Will post back when i get a response.

I would also agree with dormouse and Ratcur... once you finish applying damage in your opponents battlefield phasse often your (or mine at least) opponents just say finished because it's the last thing you can do in a turn. At that point, you say "before your turn is over, during the apply damage phase I'll use this action." Then when your turn starts immediatley anyway (unless they use an action in response to your action) and you get the action benefit of the abandoned mine.

hmmm, I bet it will end up as I said. Perform action at beginning of your turn. Not sure why this is so hard to grok. golden rule, men. And this way makes it easy to play, as opposed to triggering it at some unrelated point of your or your opponents' turn and trying to remember that you triggered it later on. And then the ineveitable arguement where someone says "I totally triggered it, you just dont remember that I triggered it", or "I meant to trigger it at the end of your battlefield phase, I just forgot."

I think you guys might be overanalyzing it. Lets see what Nate says.

something to consider. Assuming there is errata and supposed to be an action phase at the beginning of the turn, or if the card is supposed to be written differently to say whatever it is you think it should say, the card will play the exact same way.

You can just say "I will trigger this action every turn during whatever phase". Then, depending on whether you want to use the ability or not, the card says "May" so you can just say, "I triggered it, but dont want to use the ability". Essentially, every turn following the turn you first put it into play you can use its effect. Regardless of the golden rule, convoluted logic, errata, or typos, it will let you do the same thing.

It can't be the Golden Rule because the card does not say create a new action phase. The Golden Rule is that when the card text and the printed rules conflict that the card takes precedence. There is no conflict because the card does not say the action must be taken at the beginning of the phase, it simply says that is when this effect applies.

I would not be the least bit surprised if they add an action window at the beginning of the Kingdom phase, and I can think of some very interesting card/player interactions that would result from it (and consequently I hope this is the way they rule). Believing that to be the way they will resolve this issue and saying that is the proper way to play this card though are different things. Not any different than my statement on Questing units staying in play but leaving quests. Nate said that the way the rule was written was that the resources should stay, but that was against their intent when they wrote the rule and changed the rule. What you propose may be the way the rules are supposed to be, but as of now that is not what the rules are.

In a tournament/league I will require this card to be played during a legal action window as the rulebook outlines until we have clarification from Nate, regardless of what I think their intent may have been.

Adding an action slot before Kingdom phase would add for lots more tactical options. I too hope they rule this way.

After rereading the card I think it is a typo and they meant "Forced" instead of "Action"

That is also what I believe, but if it is an action then it needs to be played as outline above or they need to add a player action phase prior to the rest of the Kingdom Phase.

Got an e-mail from Nate this afternoon.

*Drumroll*

and the answer is....

Question 2 The card ABANDONED MINE allows me to take an Action at the beginning of my turn? Does this happen prior to the start of teh kingdom phase? Other than this card are there any other situations where Actions can take place at the beginning of your turn prior to the start of the Kingdom phase?

wait for it...

2) Actions that are played "at the beginning of your turn" are optional effects that can only be played when your turn begins, prior to the start of the Kingdom phase. This is currently the only card with such a restriction.

I do not think this was exactly what some of you were looking for as far as another action phase at the beginning of the turn. It seems we are going to get a small number of cards that get to "jump" ahead of the Kingdom Phase. I think I prefer this to the play the action far in advance and then wait for the appropriate turn to arrive. I

Not cool. It is basically a beginning of turn effect that you can resolve as many times as you'd like...but still not really considered an ACTION, since it cannot be the start of a chain. Using the word ACTION sure does confuse how it is supposed to play.

I really hope the Dark/High Elf Companion Set comes with an updated rulebook and FAQs.

Nate did not state whether this creates an action chain or not. I am going to reply to his e-mail and see if he will follow-up.

So rather than a new action window everyone can play cards in, this card can be played where there is no action window, in essence creating a window for itself. I'm going to need to digest this for a bit. The implications about how specialized the future cards in this game might be and how intricate the interactions and planning might become are dizzying.

I'm not sure how I feel about this ruling yet, but of course I'm glad we have the clarification, and once again the card is essentially played precisely how it is worded (though it is by Nate's own words a departure from how the other cards work).

Is there anything in the rules that would prevent you from being able to respond to the Mine's action? The only thing I can find is that actions can be played in response to other actions. Nothing strictly requires the original action to have been accomplished in an action window. What's more, if we assume that the word "may" means it's optional (which I normally would, but my reliance on English has served me poorly thus far with this game), I could trigger this action in order to have something to respond to, and then not actually pull a development. This effectively gives the Mine the ability to CREATE an action window. All those tactical possibilities everyone is considering, as a SIDE EFFECT.

I find myself in agreement with Dormouse on this one - the rules say "Actions are always optional, and can be triggered by either player during any action window in the game sequence ." Nothing in the text breaks that rule - note the Nordland Halberdiers for an example of game text which does so. Without some text to override the action window, the card should not be able to be triggered.

And now I'm going to go farther than Dormouse would (and likely end our brief period of agreement) and ask what the bloody hell Nate is doing? Is he even looking at the rules before flinging these rulings about? I was jumped on quite thoroughly for expressing concern over a designer who ruled based on the intent they wanted from a card, rather than what the rules and card text actually said. If anyone can seriously convince me that this ruling fits as printed, and isn't just a developer ruling their intent with no attention to the scope or consequence rather than admit a misprint, I'd love to hear it.

I talked our LGS into buying the league pack, which I now deeply regret. If I weren't obligated to run that, the rules nonsense displayed so far would have put these cards firmly in my "Good Looking Bookmark" pile and I'd be moving on.

I've long suspected, and continue to expect this to occur, that the FAQ or updated rules at some point will create an action window before the Kingdom phase. There is so much activity going on in the beginning of the turn that a window for voluntary actions will be created eventually, I'm certain.

I don't think thats a bad thing since there are many card effects and other actions that let you boost the power on units but, because the current earliest window is after the Kingdom phase, that power boost only helps with card draws and battlefield for now. Having an action window before you turn begins opens up much more tactical possibilites. I like!

I'm not against cards being ruled on so they follow the intent of the designers rather than on the perceived wording on the card, that after all is part of why FAQ's, Errata, etc. exist.

My problem with this card (if I can call it a problem) is that there are ways to achieve the same effect without having this card create a specific window for itself. Knowing Nate and knowing Eric's work, I really am forced to assume that this was what they wanted and what they were trying to say in the wording of the card.

My rules knowledge (I'm a rules philosopher not lawyer) comes from looking at card interactions, reading the rules and card text, and from discussions with the developer. I am as fallible as anyone. The clarification here can be seen in the card's text, but it is very different than previous LCG's and cards, which is why it didn't even occur to me that this single card could open an action window for itself.

I would say that yes, if the action was triggered it would be able to be responded to, and yes the may does strongly imply that you could trigger the Abandoned Mine, choose not to return a development just to open an action chain.

[email protected] said:

BTW, Cloud of Flies has a pretty much similar wording, and it neither shows "Action" nor "Forced" : "At the beginning of your turn, you may deal 1 uncancellable damage to this unit and to one target unit."

I have two concerns about Abandoned Mine :

1) if it is an Action, can you use it multiples times at the start of your turn ?

2) if it is an Action, can your opponent cancel it with a Bright Wizard Apprentice ("Action: Spend 2 resources to target the effects of an Action just triggered by another unit or support card. Cancel the effects of that Action (limit once per turn).") ?

To me, there's a misprint on either Cloud of flies or on Abandoned Mine (pretty much on Abandoned Mine since the current card is inconsistent with the Flow Chart).

Last, the flow chart itself seems a bit buggy, because some card effects are taking place "at the start of the turn", while the flow chart doesn't clearly state there's a "space" between the begining of the turn and the kingdom phase.